Customer Reviews

Prisoners of the Japanese : Pows of World War II in the Pacific

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The author, Gavan Daws, never served in the Second World War, but obviously took to writing this book as a labor of love and appreciation for what the Allied prisoners of war (American, British and Dutch) went through during nearly four years of captivity. His undertaking is an incredible hair-raising account of what the circumstances were behind the prisoners' incarceration, ill-treatment, and in too few cases, repatriation.

For those whose view of prisoners of Imperial Japan mirrors what they have seen in historically inaccurate movies like "The Bridge on the River Kwai," this book will shock them to the core. In truth, the Japanese camp commanders and guards were brutal and unmerciful. Some Allied soldiers, sailors and airmen were likely to take their own lives, if they had only known what being held captive by the Japanese would mean. The numerous stories of starvation, forced labor, bloody executions and unending barbarity will force sobriety on anyone who thinks that "River Kwai..." is the way it really was.

The book centers on a number of real-life captives who probably only grudingly spilled their guts to Daws, if only to get the truth out. For instance, the odyssey of American serviceman, Frank Fujita, who is partly Japanese in ethnicity, was really intriguing. Daws recounts that when Fujita was brought by barge to Japan after being so long a prisoner in the Phillipine Islands, a guard noticed (at a roll call for forced factory labor) that he had an American captive with a Japanese surname! At this, Mr. Fujita was cajoled by the Japanese military into trying to denounce his country; bravely, Fujita fought off all attempts at this farce.

Daws goes into gross detail, sparing the reader nothing regarding the dispiriting treatment of Allied POW's. He often explains that those who survived did so by using guile and trading food, cigarettes, and other items to help them over the long haul. Sadly, thousands of POW's died under the stress of prison-camp labor, tropical diseases, beatings and starvation. Not highly recommended for the most queasy among us.

The lessons are difficult to swallow, but Daws didn't write this book to gloss over what really happened in the Pacific theater...he wrote it to educate the spoiled brats who don't know what it took preserve this nation's freedom and honor. Indeed, I am sadder, but more importantly wiser, thanks to Daws' excellent work.

Maps of the Pacific theater are available for those topographically challenged, as well as a copious amount of notes in the back of the book. At 441 pages of text and notes, the account is a real page-turner. An excellent book for those interested in World War II-era human interest records.

You have probably never read a book like "Prisoners of the Japanese" because there probably has never BEEN a book like it. It's not a first-hand account, and often it reads like a novel rather than a history because Daws' style is very vivid and he tells his story with a very effective immediacy which makes it seem as if the events were taking place today instead of half a century ago, and it includes many of the personal stories of the POW's, American, British, Australian, and Dutch (from what is now Indonesia), who were held in Japanese prison camps, mostly outside of Japan, from 1941 to 1945. Whatever you may know about World War II and about Japanese atrocities, you still have much to learn if you haven't read "Prisoners." This book will take you month by month and even day by day through the hell of the camps and the appalling lives these poor men led until their liberation after V-J day. Starvation, beatings, terrible jungle diseases for which the Japanese refused to provide medical treatment, bone-wracking fatigue, ghastly tortures, and often outright murder were the daily lot of these men who suffered for Allied military blunders and lack of preparation. Not many of them are alive today, but I think we owe it to ourselves to learn about their terrible experiences and to honor them in at least this way. Shame on the U.S. government and military for keeping these stories hush-hush for over fifty years!

While the number of books exploring the depths of Nazi depravity and mistreatment of Allied prisoners of war number in the hundreds, fewer books have given similar coverage to Japanese mistreatment of both combatant and noncombatant Allied war prisoners during World War Two. This book remedies that situation by carefully documenting and describing, quite often in the testimony of eyewitnesses and survivors, both the scope and breath of this absolutely unconscionable mistreatment, which included systematic denial of medical treatment, widespread starvation, overwork, torture, and subjection to medical experimentation. Yet fifty years later the government and people of Japan still refuse to acknowledge responsibility or offer compensation for a stream of atrocities committed against Allied prisoners. Indeed, they seem more concerned and centered on seeking formal apologies from the United States for having used the atomic bomb to end the war than with atoning with their own trail of misdeed and atrocities.

This book also raises profound and provocative questions about the way that Allied prisoners were viewed by their own supreme commanders, who by some estimates are complicit in the deaths (primarily through shelling and bombing) of as many of 25 percent of all such prisoner casualties. This is a well-written book, full not only of the horror stories of war as an Allied prisoner subjected to atrocious mistreatment, but of individual courage, selflessness, & compassion among prisoners & other non-combatants, as well. His narrative style is compelling, eloquent, and moving, with a well-honed eye for details, a good ear for idioms, and a sense for the truly ironic. One walks away from this book feeling that the prisoners also showed a rare kind of courage under fire.

I suggest those who believe we visited an injustice on the Japanese by employing the atom bomb to end the war read both this book and also "Tennozan", about the bloody battle for Okinawa at the end of the Pacific war, where in 3 months of fighting 23,000 Americans, 91,000 Japanese, and 150,000 Okinawans lost their lives. Once one gains an informed perspective gained by understanding both the sustained campaign of barbaric treatment by the Japanese of combatants & non-combatants, and also understands how the historical and cultural roots of the Japanese toward combat in general and war in particular informed their attitudes and battle-planning toward continuing the war with the fervently expressed goal of making it as costly as possible for the Allied invaders, it is difficult to avoid the wisdom associated with dropping the bomb. I highly recommend this book.

Many people have heard of the Bataan Death March and are aware that the Japanese treated their WWII prisoners inhumanely. An additional few stories here and a movie or two there probably compiles as much as most of us know on the subject. For anyone who would like to know more, I highly recommend "Prisoners of the Japanese". It is a well documented and well told story that uses certain units as a focus on what it was like to be a prisoner of the Japanese. Through the eyes of these survivors, Daws recreates a living hell than no one should ever have to go through and, more importantly, one than no one should ever administer or tolerate. Daws looks at all of the different groups of prisoners including the British, Australians, and the Dutch. The war was over so early for the Dutch that it was somewhat of a surprize to realize that they were participants as well. Many images remain from this book and most are inappropriate to toss out in a review like this. This book is not for those with weak stomaches. In fact, I loaned this book to a friend after I finished it. He finally gave it back to me a year later saying it was just too difficult for him to finish reading. The author takes us through hell and back. There is a summation of what happened afterwards and that was a helpful aspect of the book although we are still left a bit short of empty.

This was a major event in 20th Century history and persons unfamiliar ought to become more aware of the depth of the brutality that has emerged in times of war. As I write this review, there is a lot of hand wringing, soul searching, and congressional investigations going on in the US over abusues American soldiers inflicted on Iraqi prisoners. What we are finding out is wrong and upsetting. However, the rhetoric and hyperbole suggest that we have forgotten the depths to which otherwise civilized nations have sunk in similar conditions in the past. It doesn't make what we've done acceptable but the comparisons some people are making betray their ignorance. If the pictures of Iraq shocked you, please read this book.

I never knew that people could be so cruel, so terrible, so evil, so sadistic, untill I read this book. You think Hitler, Stalin and Sadamm were evil? You were wrong...Before I read this book, I knew that the japanese were bad during WW2, but I had no idea how horrible they were. After reading this book, I finially knew what evil was. It was the people who tortured, mutilated, and "Took care" of allied POW's in the pacific. This book is not for those who cannot stand gore or squemish material. Some of the accounts are so ghastley, I could barley stand to read them. The account of what the Japanese did to prisoners medically are the most gruesome, hard to read passages I have ever read in my life. The sentance in which the author describes a soldier being disected alive made my blood freeze, and when he describes what a medical student wrote down after watching that scene made me fill with a rage, wondering how that student could be so arrogant and ignorant. It truly shows you how people can go to the level of monsters. The japanese captors descneded to that level and this book is not afraid to show it. Read it, and you will never come away the same.

The good:
Superbly written
An accurate, heart breaking account of what happened in the Pacific.
Truley shows what form evil can take on earth.

The not so good:
Some passages are so ghastly, it is very hard to read

Summary:
Definitly not for the squemish, but a gripping, horrifying read

It's stunning what humans can do to each other. The Japanese in World War II took a step back as a civilized nation when they committed atrocities against British, American, Canadian, and Australian POWs, as well as countless Filipino, Chinese, and other civilians and soldiers. On nearly every page of this book you'll read of the horrific treatment the POWs underwent: beheadings, medical experiments, forced labour, disease. Also you'll find out about what man will do to man in the confines of a prison camp: stealing, bribing, gambling with others' lives.

I thought what I'd find most interesting in this book would be what happened to the POWs after the war, when they reintegrated into society, and I did find the info interesting. But what I found most interesting, astounding in fact, was the way the American government treated its own soldiers after they came home. Not only were the Japanese who conducted medical experiments on soldiers not tried as war criminals, they bought their lives, their freedom, by selling the results of their "tests" to the American government. I can understand, in a way, why the government did this, as they were entering the Cold War and the war in Korea (a difficult act of a desperate government) but why didn't they provide the victims with cash or property in exchange for what they suffered? The POWs very nearly paid for their time in the camps with their lives. Surely they deserved more on return than a lack of understanding and one new set of clean clothes.

This is a well chronicled History of the prisoners held captive by the Japanese during WW-II. Segments told through the prisoners own voice and intertwined stories. How does one: Brush their teeth? Bathe? Excrete without the "taken for granted" luxury of paper? Who do you complain to?
This book is an eye opener to the cruelities of war and the nature of taking a prisoner in the first place. Yes, the strong survived. With a lot of luck and a personal desire to live. But, oh...so many died. Brutality, hate, and meanness all surface in these prisoner camps of war. This is a book for everyone who lived the era, and everyone who goes forth to war in the future. For History buffs to GIs in uniform -- a must read.

This book should be required reading for all Americans. So many people here think WWII was a glamorous, "good" war, when in fact it was horror and brutality beyond imagination. Perhaps the movie 'Private Ryan' will wake up some Americans to the horrors of war, but Daws' book shows that the war against Japan was infinitely more barbaric. The evidence of the Japanese atrocities against Americans, Chinese, Koreans, Filipinos, Dutch, Australians, and British is INESCAPABLE! Compare the mortality rates of Allied prisoners in German POW camps to those of the Japanese camps. I have studied military history for many years, and this is the most horrifying account of brutality I have ever read. It is criminal that because of the emphasis on the Nazi Nuremburg trials, many war criminal Japanese were able to escape justice. Even more perverse is the fact that a number of these war criminals now hold prominent positions in Japan today, and DENY JAPAN's ATROCITIES! Many Americans may have heard the words, "Bataan Death March," but until you read Daws' account, you HAVE NO IDEA what those Filipinos and Americans suffered at the hands of their Japanese captors. This book will make any free person wake up and realize how precious life is. This book has BEEN NEEDED FOR 50 YEARS!!

I found this book very interesting, with many different stories. Stories are depicted as told to the author. Stories go into great detail about how prisoners were subject to beatings, torture, target practice, and other atrocities that make it seem a miracle that anyone survived this at all. This book will keep your attention

Gavan Daws' effort in this book was to document the countless stories he was told by World War Two veterans who had been captured and held by Japanese forces. The men and women that are discussed in this book were subjected to torture, intentional infections and medical experimentation, saw their comrades used for target practice and suddenly beheaded, and worse. It is amazing that so many of these brave souls survived the conditions described. This book would complement the 2001 effort by Hampton Sides, Ghost Soldiers, very well. Sides' effort, one of the best history efforts I have ever read, is about one camp in particular, while this book is about the Japanese system as a whole. Daws was given a lot of testimony from the folks in famous (the river Kwai area, for example), and the obscure camps throughout Asia. The memory of this book will lat with you a long time, and make you appreciate not only the veterans of the time, but also the comforts of modern society achieved at great cost.